This album is the 25th in the Scottish Tradition Series of recordings from The School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh. The School and Greentrax are delighted to present this collection which, in common with previous volumes, is from the very important School Archives. The series was described in the past as “the most important series of traditional recordings ever”.

Between 1950 and 1975 staff and students of the School of Scottish Studies, collecting material relating to the cultural life and traditional arts of North Uist, made over five hundred recordings of songs, music, tales, verse, customs, beliefs, place-names and oral history. During her time at the Department of Celtic and Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh, initially as a post-graduate student and later as a Traditional Artist in Residence, Margaret Callan immersed herself in these recordings and in the rich Gaelic song tradition to which they bear witness. Margaret says that to do so was a privilege. In the sleeve notes she writes:

“The tracks on the album are representative of North Uist’s Gaelic song tradition in the third quarter of the Twentieth Century. The singers featured include active bearers of the tradition, renowned singers and scholars, and passive tradition bearers who rarely, if ever, sang outwith their own homes. Men and women of different generations and from different districts of the island are also represented. This provides the listener with a valuable opportunity to hear a diverse range of local dialects and singing styles. In selecting the tracks I have endeavoured to reflect the rich and extensive repertoire of the community as a whole. A broad range of song genres whose origins span several generations is represented. While Gaelic song classification is not a precise art, on account of many songs falling into more than one category, the songs featured on the CD include homeland songs, waulking songs, puirt-à-beul, canntaireachd, satires, men and women’s love songs, milking songs, cradle songs, local compositions and spiritual verse.”